1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates to a technology for performing a biometric authentication by collating biometric information that is transmitted through a network with biometric information is registered in advance.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, biometric authentication technology has been getting attention as a technology that easily and safely realizing a user authentication. The biometric authentication technology is a technology for authenticating a person through a reading of a fingerprint, veins in a palm, or the like by a sensor and a collation of the read fingerprint, veins, or the like with information that has been registered in advance.
In a conventionally implemented authentication using a password or an identification (ID) card, a person attempting to be authenticated is required to remember the password or carry the ID card. In addition, when the password or the ID card is lost or stolen, a third party can falsely perform authentication. Problems such as the above do not occur in the authentication using the biometric authentication technology.
A detailed application of the biometric authentication technology is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2001-76270, in which the authentication is performed when an employee enters a building, using fingerprint information as a collation object. The fingerprint information is stored on an integrated-circuit (IC) card carried by the employee. When the authentication is successful, the fingerprint information is recorded in a temporary storage file within a server device. Therefore, after the employee enters the building, the authentication can be performed without using the IC card.
However, when biometric information, such as the fingerprint information and the like, are stored in the IC card and the biometric authentication is performed on the biometric information, there is a high risk of a third party pretending to be an owner of the IC card and being falsely authenticated, by counterfeiting or manipulating the IC card.
At the same time, when the biometric information is stored in a database or the like and is under strict centralized control, a collation of the biometric information takes time when registered persons increase. As a result, a sufficiently quick response time cannot be attained.